Qin Ao and Chen Jianghe left the equipment room.
While the students were present, Lin Wanxing managed to remain calm as she analyzed various aspects with them. But after the noisy youngsters departed, the warehouse suddenly became quiet. The shelves at the far end were shrouded in dim light, and Lin Wanxing began to feel uneasy.
She picked up the red and blue heart-patterned wrapping paper and reluctantly read the advertisement again.
Are you confused about your life? Do you still not know where your future is heading? Teacher Lin from the Eighth School specializes in treating difficult cases such as school weariness, truancy, unwillingness to learn, poor academic performance, and other difficult problems. Address: Sports Equipment Room, Hongjing City Eighth Middle School Phone: 18953418080
It directed Qin Ao to find her by name, but why her?
Was it as stated—to find her to save confused young students?
Lin Wanxing wasn’t sure if that was the case. Chen Jianghe received the “ball borrowing card” last week when she was still in Yongchuan.
Therefore, it seemed that it was because she had taken over the position of equipment room manager that her name and phone number appeared on the cigarette pack Qin Ao received, making her the target.
Could it be, as Qin Ao suggested, that there was something in this equipment room?
Lin Wanxing’s thoughts raced, but she couldn’t make sense of it all.
She walked to the window of the equipment room and looked around at the teaching building, the office building… There were actually many locations from which the equipment room could be observed. School staff and even students were all suspects.
A breeze blew across the playground. Summer was coming to an end, and Lin Wanxing felt a chill as she touched her arm.
Regardless of how many puzzling questions there were, for Lin Wanxing now, the only clue she had was that “10-“.
For this reason, Lin Wanxing specifically went to the Eighth School’s library, hoping to find some books that might inspire a “solution” approach.
The Eighth School library was only the size of a classroom, with a limited collection of books. One could enter and borrow books simply by scanning a meal card.
Not knowing where to start, Lin Wanxing stood in front of the bookshelf, looking at book titles, randomly seeking inspiration.
Like many schools, part of the high school library’s collection came from student donations, including many books unsuitable for high school students’ age group, such as “Fun Problems for Elementary Students” and “Brain Teasers.”
Opening the books, she could see the names of the donating students written inside, the handwriting crooked and uneven—children who no longer needed the books, so their parents agreed to “hand them over” to the school.
However, these books were quite inspirational for Lin Wanxing.
From a certain perspective, the nine sentences on the cigarette papers and the final fill-in-the-blank looked very much like a code that needed to be deciphered.
Her gaze moved downward, and she happened to see a book titled “Elementary Student Fun Cryptography.”
The “Brain Teasers” and “Fun Problem Collections” might belong to the “question bank” category and could also be helpful.
In any case, if this was a puzzle, and if someone intentionally wanted them to solve it, then the answer shouldn’t be too difficult.
Lin Wanxing took a total of seven or eight books. As she was leaving, the teacher supervising the library gave her several serious looks.
At five o’clock that day, Lin Wanxing didn’t immediately go to eat; there was still a meeting for all school faculty and staff.
It was the monthly regular meeting.
Lin Wanxing was a marginal figure and was notified last.
When she arrived at the meeting venue from the library, the intern teachers were all sitting together, with no empty seats around them.
She casually found an unoccupied corner and sat down.
She first opened the borrowed “Fun Cryptography” book and learned about the general types of codes while listening to the vice principal introducing the situation of the intern teachers.
There were only a few basic types of codes. She tried to decipher them simply but found none of them fit.
She put the book aside.
The principal’s speech had progressed to the section on “strengthening teachers’ ethics education,” emphasizing that building teachers’ ethics and style was key to implementing the task of moral education.
This part of the speech concluded, and the whole venue erupted in applause. The school’s academic affairs office took over the microphone.
The academic affairs office announced that September would be “Quality Education Month,” requiring each grade and teaching research group to carry out rich and diverse teaching research activities, striving to demonstrate relevant achievements.
These were the contents of the meeting—though seemingly concise, it lasted nearly an hour.
After the faculty and staff meeting, the physical education group organized a separate meeting. It was also Lin Wanxing’s first time meeting all the teachers in the PE group.
In the office, there were only four PE teachers in total, making it five including her. They formed a circle around a table with empty spaces, so she couldn’t hide in the back and pretend to be invisible.
The head of the PE group was a slim, middle-aged man with dark, shiny skin, clearly defined muscles, and bright, piercing eyes, like someone who practiced martial arts.
The remaining three were also male teachers, and their surnames together made an interesting combination—exactly “Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li.”
She had met Teacher Qian at noon, so he introduced her to the other teachers. “This is our new Teacher Lin, a master’s graduate from Yongchuan University, currently in charge of managing the sports equipment room.”
Lin Wanxing was about to stand up from her seat to greet everyone, but Teacher Qian pressed her down. “No need to be so formal.”
She could only smile, nod, and agree.
The other three teachers were quite surprised. “What does Teacher Lin specialize in?”
“Have you won medals that allowed you to be specially recruited into Yongchuan University?”
Lin Wanxing felt quite embarrassed and could only say, “I studied a different major in college, not sports.”
“Which major?”
“Psychology.”
The four teachers looked at each other, momentarily not understanding why she was sitting there.
“It’s okay, your predecessor didn’t have a matching specialty either. He was a veteran from our cafeteria who was later transferred to watch over the equipment,” Teacher Qian comforted her.
“What kind of talk is that? Psychology and our physical activities are very closely related!” Group Leader Zhao asserted righteously.
“It’s good that Teacher Lin is here. We finally don’t have to take turns managing all those messy equipment,” the other teachers agreed.
The teachers repeatedly affirmed this, and Lin Wanxing also relaxed a bit.
She had never attended a PE group meeting before and discovered that the process was quite simple.
First, the teachers discussed the class schedule. Since no one had special leave requests, they would follow the original plan.
Then Group Leader Zhao arranged some minor matters, such as reviewing the equipment replenishment form she had submitted.
Finally came the main event.
“Regarding the Quality Education Month activities, the principal spoke to me privately. Our PE group must produce results.”
“How has this changed? When he first took office, didn’t he say that the previous Principal Kong’s ‘sports-featured high school’ policy wasn’t working, that we should focus on studies, with a three-year goal of being evaluated as a provincial demonstration high school?” Teacher Sun remarked coolly.
“Goals must be regularly updated so that comrades can have new motivation.”
“So you’re saying the demonstration high school is a lost cause?”
Group Leader Zhao coughed. “We have a young teacher present. Everyone, maintain a proper teaching demeanor.”
The four teachers simultaneously picked up their tea mugs and took a sip of water. Lin Wanxing pretended not to hear their complaints about the leadership.
The next content of the meeting naturally revolved around the direction of “how the PE group should produce results.”
As it happened, autumn was the time when various levels of sports events concentrated on opening registrations and competitions, including events such as the Anning City Middle School Student Sports Meet, the Anning City Sports League High School Basketball Competition, the Anning City Middle School Student Badminton Championship, and a series of other events.
The PE group teachers all had experience.
They organized the key events and specialties where they hoped to achieve good results, and each was assigned competitions to be responsible for.
Almost every weekend from September to October was packed with events where they needed to lead teams.
It was already completely dark outside. For the PE group, this was probably a rare overtime night.
When it came to Lin Wanxing’s turn…
“Let’s do this. I see that Teacher Lin gets along well with Chen Jianghe and Qin Ao. For next Sunday’s Youth Super League East China Regional Qualifier, let’s have Teacher Lin lead the team,” Teacher Qian’s soft voice suggested.
At that time, Lin Wanxing was looking through a stack of competition rules downloaded from the Anning City Student Sports website.
After consecutive evening meetings, she had only managed to eat a few biscuits and was feeling dizzy from hunger. Therefore, she mechanically looked up and answered, “Ah, okay.”
“Then have the students gather at the school gate, and you can take them to the competition venue together,” Group Leader Zhao added.
Only then did Lin Wanxing realize, “What venue? What competition?”
“Don’t worry, don’t be nervous,” Group Leader Zhao reassured her. “It’s just a soccer match. Because our school is still a ‘National Youth Campus Soccer Featured School,’ we didn’t participate in last year’s qualifier—we forfeited directly. This year, orders came from above saying that a high-ranking leader would be visiting, so no matter what, the team must be present. Forfeiting again would be inappropriate. Just consider it as taking students to participate in an off-campus activity. Results don’t matter.”
Lin Wanxing didn’t quite understand. “It’s not an important competition?”
“It’s not that it’s unimportant, but even important competitions need extras to make up the numbers. Just treat our school team as extras.”
“The key is, the extras need to show up?” Lin Wanxing asked. “But why did we forfeit last year?”
“Something came up at the last minute. Some students didn’t want to play anymore, so we ended up forfeiting,” Group Leader Zhao casually arranged. “In a couple of days, I’ll have Old Qian gather those kids together for you to get to know them.”
“But they didn’t participate in the competition last time. Will they be willing to go this time?”
“You’re the teacher. If you tell them to, can students refuse to listen?”